[ This description is from the project: MHS Collecting History ]

John Quincy Adams's single term as president was the unhappiest period of his long career in public service. Badly defeated in his bid for re-election in 1830, there was a brief hiatus in Adams's political career before he returned to office, serving as a member of Congress from 1830 until his death in 1848. Shortly after the Adams family left the White House for their home on Meridian Hill, John Quincy Adams noted in his diary,

Mr. Reynolds came with master Hankes who cut me out and all the family in paper. I had my wife and myself; my son John, his wife and their baby [Mary C. Adams and Mary L. Adams], Mary Roberdeau [daughter of family friend Isaac Roberdeau, of Philadelphia] and Abigail S. Adams [his niece, daugther of his brother, Thomas Boylston Adams], all cut out and pasted upon one Card.